British German Cup
My new idea is a British German Cup played between all the top division sides of the English Premier, and German Bundesliga who have not qualified for Europe. Plus all the teams of the Scottish Premier, and a selection of sides from the Welsh and Northern Irish Leagues.

Benefits for English and Germans
There are top teams in these countries who have not qualified for Europe for decades, this would guarantee they would get a replacement for European football. They would get the chance to play teams from outside their country, in competitive games. They would be able to win a cross border trophy. Without the teams in Europe representing them they would be able tow win a trophy. There is big rivallary between England and Germany, so this trophy would exploit that.

Benefits for my Scottish teams
Scottish clubs would love to get the chance to play big English and German sides, and to win a cross border cup.

Benefits for Welsh League and Northern Irish League sides
This would be like winning the lottery for Irish and Welsh clubs. They would be very grateful for this chance. So this would be a generous act of charity by English, ad German sides to play the far smaller Welsh and Irish League sides.

Organisation of cup
One leg rounds, where Welsh and Northern Irish teams have home advantage guaranteed to have cheaper travel costs. With even the final played at one of the participating teams stadiums. With home advantage decided by luck of the draw. Gate receipts and TV revenue are shared 50 - 50.

Arguments against my idea

Too many games
I disagree with this critic, as the English and German teams in the trophy would be the teams not in the Champions League or Europa League.

UEFA would not allow it.
Uefa have allowed the Sentanta Cup between League of Ireland and Northern Irish sides. Uefa have also given permission for Welsh and Northern Irish League sides to play in the Scottish lower division Irn Bru Cup

Attendances would be low
I admit in the early rounds attendances would be low but as teams progress they would get higher and higher crowds. And Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish League sides would get relatively big crowds against any German and English side

Players would play second teams in the trophy
I accept this would happen in the early rounds, but this is OK, as this happens in the FA Cup and League cup, with teams playing first teams as they trophy progresses. So in early rounds teams would give younger or fringe players a run out. So this is a good thing.

What happened to Rory? Clearly he was completely mad but we should be encouraging blue sky thinking like this. Who amongst us more mature football lovers could forget the Anglo-Italian cup and in particular the 1970 final between Napoli and Swindon Town which was abandoned due to crowd violence with Swindon leading 3-nil.

The Swindon Evening Advertiser reported on the aftermath -

"A fanatical section of the 55,000 crowd incensed by the inability of Napoli to match the craft and finishing of Swindon Town, went berserk during the latter stage of the Anglo-Italian tournament final in Naples last night. They showered the pitch with beer bottles and stones and Austrian referee Paul Schiller called the players off 11 minutes from time"[10] Reuters

Only minutes from the end of the game in Naples, with Swindon holding a comfortable three-goal lead, raging fans went on the rampage. Hundreds of concrete bench seats were torn up and smashed into small chunks which were thrown onto the pitch sending players and officials scurrying to the other side of the field for safety. Fires were started all around the stadium as the hooligans raged out of control. Bottles and blazing cushions were thrown as the match dissolved in chaos 12 minutes from full-time.

"After the fighting, in which at least 40 police, including several officers , and 60 demonstrators were injured, police guarded the San Paolo Stadium. Police said they had arrested 30 people and had 11 others in custody for questioning. According to first estimates, rampaging spectators caused about £20,000 worth of damage to stadium equipment."

Ha ha brill post Plonky, but you ask who can forget? Well I did for one. I remember being at Fairs Cup final both legs, but this one passed me by.
No violence at the Fairs cup final, but we did invade the hallowed Higbury turf

- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

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